The next afternoon, sunlight poured through the tall windows of Cordell Corporate Pharmaceuticals, a tower of glass that gleamed over the city skyline like an altar to ambition.
Inside, everything smelled faintly of money, lemon polished desks, fresh orchids, and the sterile confidence of people who believed the world belonged to them. Even the silence had hierarchy here, measured, expensive, afraid to echo.
Miles Hart sat behind his desk, jacket off, sleeves rolled, tie loosened just enough to suggest exhaustion but not vulnerability. Papers lay in disciplined stacks. His pen moved in precise, soundless strokes. He wrote like a man performing calm for an invisible jury.
At 12:15 sharp, the glass door opened.
Christy floated in.
